


Grief

by AvengersCompound (emilyevanston)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Discussion, Star Spangled Bingo, cursing god, questioning faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23326084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyevanston/pseuds/AvengersCompound
Summary: Bucky tends to have his feelings muted, never feeling too sad or too happy about anything.  A trip home to meet his sister’s family has a stop off at his parent’s graves he finally lets himself feel the grief over the things he’s lost and the things that happened to him, which leaves room for some happiness to come in too.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47
Collections: Star Spangled Bingo 2020





	Grief

Bucky held on to your hand like if he let go he was going to drown. As tightly as he held your hand, you knew he was holding back. He could crush your bones like they were twigs without even exerting himself. The fact that he was clinging to you so tightly and yet holding himself back at the exact same time summed Bucky up really well. He could never just emote the way he wanted to. He could never just show how happy he was, or how upset, or how angry. When he started to feel happy, guilt about his past would slam into him and he’d drop instantly. If he was angry or frustrated or just sad, he knew how easily he could end up hurting himself or other people.

It meant he was often in two different states. Surly and closed off. Or keeping himself so busy he didn’t have time to feel anything.

He was feeling something now though. The hand that wasn’t clinging to yours was crushing the flowers he’d brought with him.

“You don’t have to do this, you know?” You said as the two of you wound your way through the rows of weathered and worn headstones.

“Yeah, I do,” he huffed. “They had to bury me. Least I can do is visit their graves once.”

You nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. There was no give to the cool vibranium but you knew he felt the pressure.

Bucky slowed a little and began to read the names on the tombstones. Some were so faded it took a moment to discern they weren’t who he was looking for and he’d move on. Finally, he stopped and approached two graves.

The headstones sat side-by-side, touching each other. Two matching stones to mark the couple who had spent more time together than apart. There wasn’t a long obituary. Just George M. Barnes on the left headstone and Winnifred C. Barnes on the right. Followed but their birth and death years. Followed by the standard husband/wife - father/mother. Bucky began to clean the debris from the grave and brushed down the headstones. When he seemed happy with them he knelt down and put the flowers in front of each tombstone.

“Hey, Ma. Dad. Sorry, it took so long to get to see you,” he said. You stood back not sure what to do exactly. This was his thing and you didn’t want to intrude, but you didn’t want to abandon him either. So you hovered on the edge waiting to move if you needed to. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit until now. Haven’t been myself. Still not really and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I believe anymore. They had me for 70 years and I prayed… I prayed so much. I prayed I could get away and come home. I prayed they’d just kill me and put an end to it. The only thing I prayed for that actually came true was that you both never found out what they were doing to me and what they turned me into.”

He started to cry and his hands opened and closed on the ground, digging up pieces of turf. You moved to him, crouching behind him and wrapping your arms around him as you pressed your cheek to his back. “Ma,” he sniffed. “This is my girl. I’m sorry that I prayed you never lived to see what I did or what they did to me, cause it meant you never got to meet her either. And I think you would have liked her. Even if you did end up calling her one of my harlots.” You chuckled softly against him and he put one of his hands on yours and tapped his fingers against it. “Even still, I think you would be happy because I’m finally starting to feel happy. And I’m finally starting to feel like I might deserve that. But… but… it’s not fair. It’s not fair you had to bury me. It’s not fair that they did that to me. That they made me take so many people from their families too. It’s not fair that I have to be here now talking to you like this when I don’t even think you can hear me. Because if there is a god up there, why would he do this to me? Why would God do that? What did I do that brought that down on me?”

He was sobbing openly and you could feel your heart breaking for him. He never opened up like this to anyone. Not even you. To hear this kind of pain and anguish coming from him hurt in a physical way. “Bucky…” you said softly.

He shook his head and wiped his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said quietly. You kissed the side of his neck and he let out a breath. “I’m gonna go meet Becca’s family. Her kids, and their kids. There’s even a couple of grandkids. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if she ever talked about me with any of them. And I don’t know if it’s better if she did or if she didn’t. What if I’m not what they expect? What if they expect the guy who I was before war hardened me and HYDRA got their hands on me and pulled me apart piece by piece and stuck me together as the monster I am. Or is it better I just go meet these people who only know what the media says? The ones expecting the monster?”

He ran his hand through his hair and sagged a little. “This was a bad idea,” he said and you weren’t sure if he was saying it to them, or you, or just himself. “I don’t know why I thought I should reach out to them. They’re better off without me. I’m just some stranger and even if Becca was alive, I don’t think she’d know who I was anymore. I’m not who I was.”

He seemed to start straightening things up again and you relaxed your hold on him. He slumped, sitting down cross-legged and putting his head in his hands. “I miss you guys. I haven’t until recently. It was like… it was like the boy you knew was dead and buried. And I was a different person who just had to live up to him. But lately, I’ve been remembering. But not just like that. I’ve been feeling it too. I know I’ll never be that young or carefree again, but… I miss you all and I wish… I wish you could see that I get a happy ending after all.”

You kissed his shoulder and he turned his head and kissed you softly. Bucky had needed this. As much as it hurt to see him in this kind of emotional pain, he needed to feel it. To let it take him over and to let it out. He needed to not censor himself for the sake of hurting the people around him. He needed to be able to grieve for all the things that he’d lost, both the things he had lost - the family and the friends and even himself - and the things he never got to have.

“Well, I don’t know if you can hear me or not. If you can tell God he’s an asshole for me. If not… well… I guess I’m as big of an idiot as I feel,” Bucky said and looked at you. “We should go.”

“Yeah?” You asked, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “You still want to go meet them?”

He nodded and pulled himself to his feet before offering you his hand. You took it and he pulled you up and into his arms. “Yeah. Yeah. I want to see the family she had.”

You wrapped your arms around his waist and pressed your cheek to his chest. “I love you so much, Bucky. You know that don’t you?”

He nodded and nosed at your cheek. “I know. I love you too. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long fuckin’ time.”

The sound of his heart and the steady in and out of his breath centered you to him for a while as you stood in front of the graves of his parents. Eventually, he pulled back and looked down at you. “Come on then. They’re probably waitin’. You took his hand. This time he held it firmly but without that crushing need to hold on. “I wish they could have met you.”

“I wish I could have met them too,” you said. “Would she really have called me a harlot?”

Bucky started laughing. “Yeah. I mean, I think she just assumed any girl that spent time with me was a harlot, but look at you. Plus you’re pretty easy.”

“Bucky!” You yelped and pushed him.

He laughed harder and pulled you into his arms and the two of you walked, his arm slung around you. You wrapped an arm around his waist and allowed yourself to share in his happiness too. It was rare to see it and you were glad he wasn’t punishing himself for feeling it for a change.


End file.
